Miami Personal Injury Attorney Blog

In today’s world, many teenagers are choosing Uber over driver’s licenses. Not surprisingly, many parents are in agreement with this choice. In homes all over Miami and in South Florida, families are discussing the safety and economics of using Uber instead of owning, maintaining, insuring another vehicle in the household.

Miami Uber accident attorneys have also had this discussion with clients. In the course of helping accident victims in South Florida, our personal injury lawyers in Miami meet with the parents of teenagers who are coming of driving age. Our Uber car accident attorneys in Miami usually discuss the legal responsibilities and obligations of Uber or Lyft after an accident no matter whether it is a driver or passenger. But increasingly, parents are curious about our Miami personal injury lawyers’ opinion on the issue of using Uber as a primary transportation choice for their children.

As for the legal perspective, Uber and other companies like it are required to maintain $1 million of insurance that may be available to Uber drivers and passengers. But because this is a new area of the law, many issues remain to be decided by the courts. Our Uber injury lawyers anticipate considerable litigation on issues involving insurance coverage for bodily injury, uninsured motorist, and personal injury protection benefits. Uber insurance coverage issues will not only involve the insurance provided by Uber, but also the insurance of other drivers and passengers.

Let’s face it, most Uber and Lyft drivers are not out there driving for the life experience. They are not hobbyists. They are driving to make money. Some drivers do it part time while others try to make a full time living from driving for Uber or Lyft. Our Miami Uber accident lawyers hear the stories from our clients who drive and were injured in a car accident. One thing is absolutely clear, driving for Uber or Lyft is not an easy way to make a living.

Let’s consider the economics of driving for Uber and Lyft. The first thing to know is that these companies take money off the top of every ride in terms of fees and percentages of the total ride. Lyft provides the option of giving a tip while Uber does not. In general, drivers can expect to lose 20-25% of every ride fee to the company. Many drivers will only look at their weekly take home and subtract the amount of gas money they spent to figure out if they had a good week. But if we dig a little deeper, that profit margin shrinks even further.

A proper analysis of an Uber driver’s profitability should include the cost of wear and tear on the vehicle; depreciation of the vehicle’s value; and the cost of insurance. The issue of insurance is even more complex than it might initially appear.

According to a recent study, Uber drivers do in fact discriminate against black and female passengers. Researchers from the University of Washington, Stanford and MIT conducted a two-year study of Flywheel, Lyft, and Uber passengers in Seattle and Boston. The study reviewed almost 1500 rides in both cities.

The researchers found that black riders using UberX ended up waiting anywhere between 29 and 35% longer than others similarly situated white passengers. The study also found that females were regularly taken on rides that were longer than necessary and ended up being frequently overcharged. The study also discovered that people requesting rides with “African-American sounding” names were canceled disproportionately by drivers when compared to riders requesting with” white sounding” names.

As background, Uber drivers have some control over what rights to accept and what areas to drive in. The drivers can cancel any ride request. An Uber driver can effectively take themselves out of any area by simply logging off the Uber app. For example, if an Uber driver picks up a ride on South Beach and takes that passenger to Miami Gardens and the Uber driver does not want to accept any rides from Miami Gardens then he/she can simply turn off the Uber app. Then they drive to an area and when they want to accept new rides they turn the Uber app back on.

Miami Car accident lawyers deal with people who were injured by aggressive driving or even road rage every day. Road rage is the more extreme form of aggressive driving such as people who get out of their car to confront or assault other drivers. It also includes drivers who intentionally run into other cars or people. Aggressive driving can take many forms and often plays a role in numerous Miami car accident injury cases. In our analysis, it’s getting worse every day. Now there is a study on aggressive driving that backs up our opinion.

According to a recent study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, almost 80% of drivers in the past year had expressed road rage, aggression or extreme anger on at least once occasion. The information was collected in a national survey of 2,705 drivers who were at least 16 years old and had driven in the past thirty days. In 2014, it is estimated that there were over 213 million licensed drivers in the U.S. according to the Federal Highway Administration.

This AAA study suggests that about 8 million drivers in the United States had engaged in significant road rage including getting out of their vehicle to confront other drivers or intentionally ramming other cars. The perception of almost two thirds of drivers believe that aggressive and angry driving has increased over the past three years. Ninety percent of us believe that road rage and aggressive driving is a serious and significant threat to our personal safety.